The Film Review Database

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

(SPOILER FREE)

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The Good: Funny, sometimes clever, and a very nice little plot. Not your average Disney sequel. Magnificent soundtrack.
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The Bad: Can get a little too…childish. Shockingly bad acting. Not as good as its predecessor.
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It was going to be Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest or Snakes on a Plane. The choice was more than obvious, see why here. So Pirates it was; I still wasn’t expecting much. Your average Disney sequel often consists of constantly regurgitated jokes that are only funny once, and the usual, boring 2-D characters that are only there for the plot. Pirates breaks that rule to a satisfying degree…surprisingly enough.

The film sees us continue on from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, with Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) at the helm of the Black Pearl, and Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swan (Keira Knightley) getting ready to be married. However, it’s not long until things go wrong, and soon all three are deeply involved in a tantalising plot, involving Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and his fabled “Dead Man’s Chest”.

It’s important to establish that the first film was good. Not just funny, but well directed with a brilliant script and soundtrack and a brilliant performance from Depp. It’s also important to note that if this were the usual Disney sequel, the director and writer would have no motivation, the composer would have moved on, and the actor would just be doing it for the money. Luckily, that is not the case. Verbinsky sits comfertably in the director’s chair, Elliot and Rossio team up once more and write another very amusing script. The ever ingenious Hanz Zimmer has composed a few more classic scores, and Depp is on top form, and delivers yet another spectacular performance.
A lot of the film is in its plot, but since the review is spoiler-free, I wont go into it with you, but the cliffhanger ending will have anyone who saw this watching the 3rd that is currently being filmed.

Of course, the most central piece in the puzzle has to be the humour. Probably the best thing about the humour is like that of the Simpsons: there’s plenty for the main target audience (children), but just as much for any older person going to see it. It can get a little too childish at points, and it does try to re-live the jokes of the first film sometimes, but the writers have come up with plenty of new material, and they don’t over-emphasise or labour the running jokes in the series. “Snip-snip Unic” comes to mind…Stupidly funny.

Surprisingly, the film can actually get quite dreary and dark at times. Another surprising element is that it seems some seeds were planted for character development in Davy Jones…yes, character development! Sparrow also seems to undergo some personality revealing moments, but mainly he’s the same hyper-camp but totally respectable pirate…but is it with a heart of gold, instead of for it? We shall see.

Whilst it’s taken for granted nowadays, it’s worth highlighting that the CGI is pretty much photo-realistic. It’s used frequently throughout the film, and if asked, you’d be hard pressed to differenciate between that and a real image…and whilst you’d also be hard-pressed to find a real image of someone with a beard of tentacles, you get the idea. It’s getting to the point now where the photo-realism of CGI is starting to be literally that: photographically realistic. It almost looks real, and no doubt the huge amounts of 12 year olds who probably went to see this film will take this amazing technological feat for granted, I only hope that it’s respected and appreciated by studios who wish to use it.

On par with the images, the music, as composed by Hanz Zimmer, is truly fantastic. Bringing back a lot of the classics from the original film, he throws in a whole load of new mixes, and even a couple of brand new toe-tapping tunes that really make you want to go out and buy the soundtrack. It does make the film genuinely more enjoyable when the action on screen is accompanied by this enthralling music.

It’s not all good; predominantly because Bloom or Knightley haven’t learned how to act yet… although it would appear Bloom has improved his People’s Eyebrow and Knightley continues to speak like an aggrivated dog; teeth bared. Apart from those two, the rest of the cast are more than satisfactory, and leave you with more of a feeling that they didn’t just go there for the cheque. Startlingly good as well is the vocal performance from Bill Nighy, who plays the evil but deeply troubled Davy Jones. It’s tough to act well when you’re not actually on set, interacting with everyone else. It was his first time doing this, but you wouldn’t be able to tell.

Also, more generally, it isn’t supposed to be a really good film, it’s supposed to be just generally ‘good’ all round, and at that it succeeds, but not as much as its predecessor…It’s difficult to put the finger on why that is true, but it is, perhaps just because the first one was so fresh.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest is really enjoyable and not too much else. It’s not crap by any means, and it can be quite a clever little thinker at points, but when it comes down to it, its only aim is to entertain and leave you wanting more; and in this goal it succeeds. The third is yet to come, but judging by Dead Man’s Chest, this line of films is shaping up to be a neat little trilogy.

–Out of Five–